Wednesday, July 30, 2014

This week didn't have a ton going on, but it was still fun. July 28, 2014

Last Monday was a pretty typical P-Day. We e-mailed then ended up at the mall which sucks, since it's as worldly of a place as there is, but at least we got to play soccer which is always fun. Then we had dinner at the Kepler's. He is our Elder's quorum president. They are both converts, and really cool. Then we knocked doors the rest of the night.

On Tuesday we went down to the Tridge and talked to some peeps, then we took like an hour of our day and made a ton of phone calls to try and set up all our appointments for the week. Then we went over to a less active member's house and played pool with him since Bishop told us to go over there and be his friend, but not to proselyte. After that we knocked doors for a while and then had dinner at the Bowman's house. Bro and Sis Bowman have been the Mission president in Mexico, the Peru MTC president, and the Peru Temple President. They were really cool. After that we went and saw Curt and Patty Cormier and taught them the Gospel of Jesus Christ, which was really good. They are super awesome.

On Wednesday it was Arms Day, so things were pretty intense over on 2201 Ashman Street Apt. #2. :) Then we had District Meeting and took District pictures, since it was our last District Meeting of the Transfer. We went to Wendy's for district lunch and almost made it completely around the table because Sister Cox was doing her "Yurps" (when she does her turrets thing) a ton. haha. Then we went to get Hunter Glenn, who is a pretty recent RM, he went to El Salvador. He was coming to teach Brian and then Aaron with us. But when we got to Brian's house, he wasn't there. So we had to take Hunter home, and totally missed out on a couple of sweet member present lessons. We were able to teach Aaron the Restoration still, and it was the hardest lesson ever! We were teaching him in this business building with a nice lobby and there is a restaurant in it and there was music playing in there, it was killing me! The music was all so good: Life in Technicolor, Dog Days are Over, Don't Stop by Foster the People, it was tough for me. Then we studied before going over to Jan and Jon Marcou's house. The Marcou's are etern-i-gators. They have been investigating the church for 14 years, since their daughter joined the church. They always have us over and feed us, then we teach them a lesson. We taught the second half of the Plan of Salvation, it went really, really well. They were saying that the Spirit World and Three Degrees of glory all made sense to them. We told them to look up "His Grace is Sufficient" by Brad Wilcox. Because we kept telling them that we are all saved by grace, but our works determine how comfortable we will be in God's presence.

On Thursday we studied, and then helped Sister Reyes help a friend move a washer, it was pretty hard since her ceiling in the basement is only 5 feet tall, but it was all good because Sister Reyes gave us burritos. :) Then we taught Brian the Gospel of Jesus Christ. It was a really good lesson. Our only obstacle with him is getting him to church. We have him on a baptismal date, but he is nervous to come to church and meet a lot of people, and then he also doesn't really want to affiliate with a denomination. But once he really prays about the Book of Mormon, he will come around. :) Then we had a member present lesson planned with Ben but he canceled on us. Then Nick was supposed to meet us at the Tridge, but he shined us. So we finally contacted the referral that Bro. Chris Sanford gave us. She was busy with people over, but we got her info, and she told us to come back. Her name is Tammi Dunham. After that we tried to go to Nick's house, but he wasn't home. So we went to Curt and Patty's. They fed us dinner and then we taught them. They are so nice to us. Then we got a text from Heather, Nick's mom, telling us to come over. So we went over and she told us about how Nick had just gone and gotten gages and that since she is a single mom and working her butt off he is just taking advantage of that. Also that he just puts on a face for us missionaries and acts interested, but really isn't. So we were able to talk to him for a little, and I told him that it's really important to not "give up what you want most, for what you want now." I hope he can figure things out before he hits rock bottom, and he's only 13! That's what's wrong with the world, it's all about instant gratification....

On Friday we studied and then did Weekly Planning. We also got Transfer Calls! which don't really affect me since I'm training, but was still suspenseful. Elder Anderson is going to be Zone Leader in Spring Lake, and now Elder Finlayson is the District Leader and he is going to be training, which means that I'll no longer be the newest missionary out here! :) Then we went and taught Joe. His roommate was watching American Dad while we were trying to teach him, and that show is super bad, and it was really distracting. But we finally got them to turn it off, but it got worse from there, since Joe was falling asleep while we were teaching him, he would start to doze even when he would be talking. hahahah. It was ridiculous though. Then we knocked doors for a while. I was talking about the Philadelphia Eagles as I often do, and Elder Hess got really mad at me about how much I talk about how I like the Eagles and how I don't like the Cowboys. I think it was just because he was tired. But we got over it, it's all good. He's just mad that the Eagles are the best team on the face of the planet. And he did admit that he was a little jealous of my footie pajamas. :). Then we had dinner at sister Nyman's house and knocked some more.

On Saturday after we did studies we went to the Shelter House and helped out for a while, I also found some pretty sweet stuff there. They have everything as a set price, and the longer it is on a shelf, the cheaper it gets, it is really awesome. Then we went to teach Ben with Bro Cannady, but he shined us. That is kind of how our week went, every time we had a member with us, the person wasn't there.... So we went to Blake's house and painted our miniatures and while we were there the entire movie "Planes" played, and it was a pretty good movie. hah. Pretty much a not as good knock off of Cars. We had a hard time getting out of there, but we were able to get out after 3 hours, which may sound like a long time, but with Blake, it's pretty dang good. :) Then we got to teach Ben, turns out he went to the new Hercules movie and forgot. But we got to teach him about tithing. He agrees to everything, but he just can't quit smoking. Then we knocked doors for the rest of the night.

On Sunday we had Church. Sacrament meeting's topic was on Eternal Families, and it was so good. Bro. and Sis. Bowman spoke and they did awesome. Sis Bowman said "Life isn't a fairy tale, but we can all live happily ever after" Then Brother Bowman gave some really good marriage/family advice, which I made sure to take some religious notes on. hah. Then after church we talked with Nick and pretty much just talked with him, as friends. Then we told him how important it is to come to church. He just really needs some good examples in his life, so hopefully we can do that for him. Also on Sunday for like an hour it was pouring rain. It was probably raining harder than I have ever seen, it was crazy! We went home teaching with Hunter Glenn and then had dinner at Sister Wheeler's house with the sisters and Hunter since she is a single woman. There were some really good chimichangas. She is a really, really cool lady, except turns out she is a Cowboys fan, but she told me she would keep me posted. :)

So far today we have shopped, studied, played soccer, and are now e-mailing.

Some really cool scriptures I found this week were D&C 138: 27-60 which talks about how the teaching in the spirit world works. It is really really cool. Also James 4:17 is cool when relating to what SIN really is. It says that if we don't do good when we know that it is good, then it is sin. So it shows just how awesome Jesus really was and still is. Also without Satan, Heavenly Father's plan wouldn't work. So Satan obviously doesn't know Heavenly Father's plan, which is really cool, and so we don't know all of his plan. So I bet Satan feels really dumb about that. hah.

This week didn't have a lot going on, but I still had a good time, and we knocked a lot of doors and worked really hard so I still feel good about it. I love you all like crazy. I still have a ton of work to do out here, but I dream about the day when I get to walk off the airplane and give all of you a huge hug! It's going to be the best day of my life getting to be together again. :)

Monday, July 28, 2014

This week we didn't get to teach very much, but we did a lot of finding, and had some really cool things happen to us.

On Monday, I mean P-Day we played soccer in the morning, and Elder Anderson and Finlayson sorta got into an argument, since things had gotten a little too intense during the many games we played, and it didn't help that it was really hot and humid. I was mainly mad because I lost the second to last game we played, so I went 6-1... :( haha. Then we e-mailed for a super long time, then we went to the mall. Elder Hess went to get a new suit, and we were there so long that I bought a new pair of slacks that are pretty dang sexy and were on sale. I also bought some protein from GNC, so I can continue on #operationswoll. We went to the Jenkins' house for dinner. They made the Ling Ling pot stickers and orange chicken, it was awesome! They are probably my favorite family here. They have 5 kids all 10 or younger, and currently they have a 6 and 4 year old I think, who both have broken arms. ha. Their 4 year old, Kade, and I are pretty good buddies. He kept throwing his napkin at me during dinner, it was funny. We taught them the Restoration using the cups to "build" the true church, it is really fun to do with little kids. They are solid members. Then we went over to Blake's house. We got him to open up to us a lot about his family, and we also painted our miniatures, which is pretty hard stuff, but it's really fun.

On Tuesday we did a lot of finding earlier in the day, and it was also our last day with bikes, which is a relief, you get way less work done on bikes... Later in the day we did teach Nick, our 13 year old investigator. We moved his baptismal date up to July 26! After that we had dinner at Curt and Patty Cormiers. They are the coolest people ever, she made apple crisp for dessert! YUM! We were super psyched about Nick, but then the Sister Missionaries, Sister Cox and Procopio, called us and told us that they were over at Nick's house with his mom, Heather. Heather is going through a divorce and her settlement requires her to move to Saginaw to be closer to the dad, so she is going through a really hard stressful time. So they called and told us that Nick had stolen his Mom's credit card and bought a $200 skateboard. So now we can't baptize Nick for a while, because he has some repenting to do, obviously.

On Wednesday we had District Meeting, which was really good, we talked about "Treasure up the words of Eternal Life" from David A. Bednar's talk, "Becoming a Preach My Gospel Missionary". Sister Cox in our district has tourettes, so every time she "yurps" we all move a chair to the right, it's pretty funny. For district lunch we went to Taco Bell, and we scored some sweet freebies, Mirror by Justin Timberlake, Lucky by Jason Mraz and Colbie Cailet, and even some John Mayer. hah. Then Elder Finlayson and I were on trade-offs, so I was in the Midland 1st ward area. We had to study, and since I'm new and doing the "first 12 weeks" training thing, we had to watch 2 hours of The District, and I fell asleep. ha. Then we went and knocked doors for a while, and met this lady who was super anti-Mormon. She told us she had read some stuff from former members of our church, then we told her we believe in the Book of Mormon, and she told us "don't believe everything you read" I wanted to chew her out and call her a hypocrite... but I can't do that as a missionary... Then we went to the Klopf's house for dinner, she made enchiladas, they were the best ones I have ever had, then she gave us a mountain of strawberry shortcake and ice cream, it was amazing. Then we went to Stephen's house, for a little bit, his whole family was baptized like 20 years ago, but he's addicted to smoking, and doesn't believe it's true yet...

On Thursday we went to help the M1 sisters move a potential investigator, but when we got there they were pretty much done, so we just went and got donuts. We then traded back. We went to the Open Door, a charity place for people who are out of jail and trying to get back on their feet. We were going to meet Patty there, but she never showed up, so we just helped them out anyway. We saw Ben Guffy today. We taught him about following the Prophet. Halfway through the lesson his mom showed up to bring him a blizzard. Ben then said stuff like "I try to impress my mom with my words" and "My mom changes her mind a lot" then his mom was like "what do you mean?" So Bro. Lindauer, who we had brought with us, explained that we understood what Ben meant. But for some reason he just couldn't get his words out, it was the funniest thing ever. He was stammering and didn't make any sense. Ben's mom was probably really happy that we brought someone like Ben with us. haha. Then we went to see David Clark, who is a less active. Once we got back to our apartment we got a call from Blake, and he really needed a ride so he could go pick up his girls from day-care. So we called David Clark since him and Blake are really similar, and he was happy to help. It was awesome, we got Blake a fellowshipper, and got a less-active more involved. Then we weekly planned, and it went really well. Then we went to Blake's again and painted and talked with him.

On Friday I shredded my Bi's and Tri's, which was awesome. hah. Then we visited Dale, who is less active, and he told us that he got $1 million dollars from a motorcycle accident settlement, and had blown it all! After that we went to the Tridge, since this Weekend was River Days, which is a big festival put on by the city to raise money. After lunch and a nap, we started knocking doors. While we were knocking, we got a phone call from a number from Ohio. So I answered. It was a guy named Chris, who grew up in Midland. He asked us for a Book of Mormon and Bible, because his sister had agreed to get them from him, since she isn't a member. So we had to scramble to get a Bible, but we found one then met him at the 7-Eleven parking lot. He was a super cool guy, he was super passionate about missionary work, and he bought us pizza and drinks. He told us some of his mission stories, and then told us to stop by his sister's house, so we got a referral! It was so awesome.! After that we went to the Tridge the rest of the night.

On Saturday we went over to Bro. Jones house to do service. We broke up concrete again and then dug a hole in his crawl space. It was some hard labor, but I loved it! He also fed us the same breakfast as last week with buttermilk pancakes, blueberry syrup, and bacon. It was so good.! We were super dirty after, but I had a blast. After that we cleaned up and went to Nick's house and helped him pack since he's moving, but he's still in our area. We had a good discussion with him, he's a super smart guy. Then we did our studies, and went to the Tridge for River Days. We tried an approach with the other elders. We tried conducting a survey to get more investigators. The people in charge kicked us out since they had "rented the park" so we just kept going on the other side of the Tridge but we gave up on the surveys.

On Sunday we went to church and during Priesthood the lesson was on eternal marriage. All the guys were making a ton of jokes and stuff, it was pretty funny. Then we did our companion study on prayer and it was a really good study. We decided that if you don't pray with real intent, it's sorta a waste of your time. Then we had a speed dinner at the Krueger's house because we had to pick up the other elders and we went to St. Brigid Catholic Church with Alexis, one of their investigators. It was really interesting. And the Priest was preaching and said "I am I am" and we started singing the song from Nacho Libre, after we had left of course. haha. Since it was evening mass, nobody was dressed up, and we were in suits. hah.

Overall the week was a pretty good one. I am having to learn to be really patient out here, and it's hard, but it's good for me. Being with a companion 24/7 can be tough, even if you get along with them really well. Alma 34:31-35 are great scriptures on Our Earth Life, and how we need to take advantage of the time we have here. Being away from all of you has made me realize how much I really do love you. I'm so lucky to have you all as my family. HE LOVE!!!!

Wednesday, July 16, 2014

So this past week was a pretty dang good week, other than the fact that you were all at Lake Powell! But once Saturday came around and I knew you were all home, I was pretty happy. ha.

So on Monday we partied pretty hard on P-Day. ( even though it should be called P-8 since we only have 8 hours off.) We studied and then e-mailed, then Elder Finlayson and I played an intense game of P-I-G. Neither of us could make a shot, until the other one did, then we would make a half-court shot to answer the other, it was clutch stuff. After that we went to the mall and ate Taco Bell, then Elder Hess had to get his watch re-sized. After that we went to Grove Park which is like half a mile down the street from our apartment and played soccer. It was super fun, nobody else really plays, so I do work, but it is a ton of running, which can only help me improve my bod. haha. So after that we went over to Blake Schrode's house. He is what we call an "etern-i-gator" He is super nice to the missionaries and always expects us to share scriptures with him. He is super into sports, so we have some great conversations. His hobby is painting miniatures. He has over 150,000 of them, it is insane. The miniatures are of like sci-fi characters, Elder Hess and I are actually painting our own miniatures with him right now, it's pretty hard though, since I'm not very artistic...

On Tuesday we had a bodacious day! We were teaching and had appointments literally the entire day. Which was RAD.( I hate that I just used that word) We first went out to Joe Booth's house. We helped him rearrange his furniture, then taught him about enduring to the end. I really emphasized with him to always be enduring to something, that way things don't seem so insurmountable. I used a quote that President Hess told me before he left, "Life by the inch is a cinch, but by the yard it is hard." It has really helped me with my mission so far. Then we taught Ben Guffy with Bro. Cannady, our ward clerk. We taught him the 10 Commandments using hand signals, then talked about obedience, which is the first law in heaven and to everything, especially missionary work! We had Bro Cannady share his conversion story about giving up alcohol and coffee, so it was good to have him to relate to Ben. After that we went to Blake's house to continue to paint our miniatures, and it "just so happened" that the Brazil vs. Germany game was on!!! I got to watch most of the first half, and my jaw was on the floor the entire time, Germany just throttled them! It was so embarrassing. We sorta felt bad about watching it afterward, but we did give him one of the Family: Proclamations. We then got shined (when we have an appointment but they aren't there) by Nick Gagarian, our 13 year old investigator who blew up his toilet. So after dinner we went and taught Curt and Patty. We are never able to actually teach a full lesson to them since Curt loves to get off subject, but I don't care, I love Curt and Patty Cormier, they are my favorite people!

On Wednesday we met Elder Anderson and Finlayson at the park and played soccer in the morning, after that we just traded off from there. So I was in the other Elders area, the Midland 1st ward, with our District Leader Elder Anderson for the day. We had a pretty solid day. The first two doors we knocked we got a return appointment with a guy, he was the first person to actually let me inside! and then had a really good conversation with this girl named Mercedes, her dad is Muslim. After knocking doors for a while, we got shined, but then knocked more doors. We met a Brazilian guy named Marcelo who we asked if we could come back to meet with him, and he was like "yes of course" We don't really know how well he understood us, but it was cool. We had dinner at Bishop Ostergaard's house. We had curry, mango sticky rice, then super doughy brownies that rocked, it was a good meal. After that we taught a guy named Brendon with an RM. He was really smart in the Bible, since his parents spent the first half of his life as missionaries in Africa. He said he sorta liked the stuff we shared with him out of the Book of Mormon, but didn't think it was true. So the I bore my testimony about the Book of Mormon and told him that the only way he could really know that it is true is to read it. After that we met with a girl named Alexis, with Sis Keil. So Sis Keil isn't actually a member of the church, but makes all the sacrament meeting programs and stuff, she is just non committal. That lesson went pretty well, we mostly talked about original sin, and the fall of Adam, and the 2nd article of faith.

On Thursday we played soccer again, but this time the Zone Leaders woke up super early and met us there so we could play 3 on 3, which was really fun. Elder Stevenson was actually pretty good, he could sorta hang. :) So after that we showered and got looking nice so we could go to our Meet the President meeting. President Jacobsen is awesome. He is super excited and intense. He pretty much spoke about working hard and being obedient, which is what everybody does when they are new. But he related a ton of stuff to football which I thought was cool. He even showed us this football video which was pretty motivating. His wife shared a cool quote with us "You are better than you think you are". After that Elder Hess and I did studies and weekly planning, then we got picked up and went out to see his cousins, who were visiting her parents, who happen to live in our area and are less active, I don't know how "legal" it was, but they were really cool. After that we traded-off with the Zone Leaders. Elder Stevenson stayed here with me, which meant that I had to "take over" the area. So we went down to the Tridge and PC-ed. We were on fire, everybody was talking with us. Then we got picked up by the Henson's and they took us to Pizza Sam's downtown, which was really good. Her son was there, and he flies Chinooks in the Army, he has been deployed for a total of 58 months!!! But he won't be deployed anymore since he got a new job. After that we went and met with Curt and Patty. We taught about half of the Plan of Salvation and about halfway through the lesson Bro. Jones, Sister Cox and Procopio brought over Heather, who is a recent convert and is going through a divorce and having a super hard time. I was able to give her a blessing. I was pretty nervous since it was my first one ever, but it was amazing how the spirit guides you! After that we knocked on this one door of a couple of drunk people who were crazy. Then on our way out, we saw Nick, and set up an appointment with him. So we had to bike all the way home from Curt and Patty's since we don't have a car this week, I'm a legit missionary now. ha.

On Friday we had another solid day. Elder Stevenson and I studied and practice taught the Plan of Salvation which we were going to teach Brian. Then we went down to the Tridge for a little bit. We then pedaled over to Brian's. He is 18 like me. We taught him the plan of salvation and it went really well. Then when teaching the part about the Atonement I used 3 NEPHI 27:19-20 and extended the invitation to be baptized, and he said...............YES! It was super cool. We then taught him about priesthood authority and what baptism means, it was an awesome lesson. After that we stopped by Ben's house and taught him the Word of Wisdom, since he just needs to quit smoking so he can be baptized. He even gave us his cigarrettes which was really cool. I even got to give him a blessing which was really cool. After that we knocked doors. We met a sweet potential investigator named Sage. She already knew a lot about the church and her only issue was with Joseph Smith, which we can work with. We also knocked on this one door where the lady answered and when she saw us she started banging on the door yelling "I have my God, I have my Jesus!!" It was nuts. After that we traded back and Elder Hess and I were reunited. But I really liked being with Elder Stevenson, he is a super cool guy. That night We taught A-aron who is Brian's friend. He has a lot of really deep questions that are pretty hard to answer. It was a good discussion though. Then we met a really cool family at the Tridge, and we got their info. The mom was really religious and even wanted to read the Book of Mormon after I explained it to her.

On Saturday we got up and headed straight over to Bro. Jones house to do service with Curt Cormier. I started off the day by digging a hole. Someone had already started digging and had gotten pretty far, but then I dug for about an hour and a half, and got the hole 8 feet deep, it was pretty hard to get out. hah. After that Bro. Jones fed us a breakfast of champions. It was buttermilk pancakes, blueberry syrup, whipped cream, apple sauce, milk, grape juice, and bacon! It was SO GOOD! After that I helped Bro. Jones plant a tree, then spent the rest of the time helping Elder Hess and Curt bust up the concrete on Bro. Jones back porch using a sledge hammer, which we called "persuasion," it was really fun. We were there for like 5 hours. After that we biked home and got ready. Then we biked over to Nick Garagarian's house. We had to wait for like 30 min for him to get there. But we taught him the Restoration, and he asked us when he could be baptized before the lesson was even over which was awesome. We set him for August 9th, same as Brian. Then we went over to Curt and Patty's for a little bit. Curt showed us his tie collection and gave us about 10 ties, which was really cool. After that we headed over to Bro. Jones house and he fed us pizza, which was really good then we just studied the rest of the night.

Sunday wasn't too eventful, except we went to a Jehovah's Witness Kingdom Hall! We got invited so we decided to go. It was really cool, once we walked in we were just attacked, everyone was so nice and friendly to us. The first 30 min a guy gave a sermon, then the next hour and a half they read from their magazine "The Watch Tower" and then two guys would go around with microphones on boomsticks so people could comment and answer questions, it was sorta weird, but cool. After that we studied. Then we had dinned at the Smith's house and taught a short lesson on the Restoration with them. We then PCed at the Tridge the rest of the night. We met a group of Taiwanese people who were really nice.

So far today we have grocery shopped, studied, and played soccer, which got a little too competitive....

This week was really great for me and I needed it since you were all partying at Lake Powell.

You should check out Moroni 7:33. It is a great verse on faith, just read the whole chapter, it rocks. I love and miss you all a ton and think about you constantly. I love you.

Love,

Elder Chalmers

This is the note that Elder Stevenson left on the cigarettes that Ben gave us, we put them in Elder Hess's desk.

Saturday, July 12, 2014

So this week has been pretty busy, and fun. We have done a ton of finding this week, which means knocking a lot of doors, and tracting a lot at the Tridge. One of the days at the Tridge we were taking pictures of these turtles. They all group together on this log, it's pretty cool. We also saw these 3 squirrels fighting and I got it on video, it was really cool.

So the 4th of July here wasn't all that great until the night. None of the members invited us to anything, so we were tracting at the Tridge for about 6 hours. We met some cool people though. One guy gave us blueberries and then another lady gave each of us a Gatorade which was nice. One guy thought we were Jehovah's Witnesses and said something about the 144,000, which was pretty funny. We talked to this black guy named Zach that day, and he actually seemed pretty interested, then he got a phone call and went over to talk to the person who called him, and turns out it was Ben Guffy, our "less accountable" investigator. Turns out that Zach is also slightly "special." We tend to attract those kinds of people. We also saw Quan again today! We see him almost everyday! He is this small black dude that we talked to once when we were walking around knocking doors and ever since then we see him all the time. So he was wearing a purple polo, khakis, and a Jesus hat. We asked him why he was dressed up and he said "You know, For the New Year." The poor guy was a little confused...

So after walking forever all day, we met the other elders, Elder Anderson and Finlayson at our apartment and we went back down to the Tridge to watch fireworks. The second we got there and were sorta "off duty" everyone started talking to us and being really friendly, while when we were there earlier not very many people wanted to take time out of their holiday and talk to us. So then these 3 high school girls starting talking to us, mainly to Elder Hess and Elder Anderson. Elder Finlayson and I thought it was pretty funny, since it sorta seemed like the girls were just flirting with them. One of the girls asked Elder Hess after talking to him for like 20 min, "Wait, what church are you from?" She obviously wasn't too interested. ha. The fireworks were really cool though. We didn't get back to our apartment til 11:10 and didn't get to bed til like 11:45 so on Saturday we were exhausted all day!

We were able to pick up a new investigator this week though. He is the son of a recent convert. His name is Nick Hale, and he's 13. He came to church with Patty Cormier, who is also a recent convert, and she and her husband, Curt, are on fire. They are so solid. The reason he was at church was because he blew up his toilet with a firework the day before and his mom was super mad. We talked to him and he told us that he had been on date for baptism before but then decided not to go through with it so we taught him later on Sunday. We were able to bond with him really well over screamo music. ha. He said he likes us more than the other missionaries who taught him. The negative is that he is moving pretty soon otherwise we would be able to baptize him pretty easily. But we can just refer him to the Saginaw missionaries.

I have been super tired all the time but I guess that is just how it goes, but it's still really fun. Elder Hess and I get along really, really well. We make jokes that we are dating. ha.

For one lesson I taught Joe about enduring to the end. I shared 2 Ne. 31:20, and told him to not think about enduring to the end, but just endure to something. Like his arm is broken, so I told him to endure that, then once he did that, to endure to something else. President Hess told me the first day I got here that "Life by the inch is a cinch, but by the yard it is hard." It has been really helpful for me in enduring to the end, and enduring to the end of the mission. Also Ether 12:27 rocks. I love you all and am always thinking about you. Never forget that without the Atonement of Jesus Christ, there would be no hope in the world. Always be grateful for the sacrifice that Jesus Christ made, and the blessings that it brings to our lives.